News and commentary on Caribbean culture, literature, and the arts

Video captures Hurricane Maria’s terrible impact on Puerto Rico

On Tuesday afternoon, 34 days after the hurricane made landfall in Puerto Rico, the National Weather Service in San Juan posted an unassuming YouTube link to their Twitter account. I’ve never seen anything like it posted by the National Weather Service before:

There’s footage from all corners of the island, showing washed out bridges, flattened homes, and broken infrastructure. The camera flies over a wind farm in Naguabo and a solar farm in Humacao — both destroyed in the storm. In nearly every shot, there are twisted trees, stripped of their leaves.

Though this video was intended as a visual chronicle to accompany a meteorological report, it’s striking on its own.